MDPI will be attending the 2023 IEEE International Symposium on Information Theory (ISIT 2023) in Taipei, Taiwan, which will take place from 25 to 30 June 2023.

ISIT is the premier international conference series dedicated to the advancement of information theory and related areas. It brings together an international community of researchers and practitioners each year to present and discuss new research results and perspectives on future developments relevant to all areas of information theory, including big data analytics, source and channel coding, communication theory and systems, cryptography and security, detection and estimation, emerging applications, networks, network coding, signal processing, and statistical/machine learning.

The following MDPI journals will be represented:

• Entropy;
• Mathematics;
• Information;
• Axioms;
• Algorithms;
• Symmetry;
• Data;
• JCP;
• Cryptography.

If you are attending this conference, please feel free to stop by our booth. Our delegates look forward to meeting you in person to answer any questions you may have. For more information about the conference, please visit the following link: https://isit2023.org/.

We are pleased to announce the winners of the Entropy 2022 Outstanding Reviewer Award. The Entropy Editorial Board and editorial team would like to gratefully acknowledge the time and energy dedicated by reviewers in checking the manuscripts submitted to Entropy (ISSN: 1099-4300). It is due to their efforts that the high quality of the journal and quick turnaround are maintained.

Name: Prof. Dr. Alexander Zlotnik
Affiliation: Department of Mathematics, Higher School of Economics University, Moscow, Russia
Research interests: numerical methods for PDEs; mathematical gas
dynamics and hydrodynamics

Name: Dr. Jim W. Kay
Affiliation: School of Mathematics and Statistics, University of Glasgow, Glasgow, UK
Research interests: probability; mathematical statistics; statistical inference and modeling; computational statistical inference; Bayesian modeling; discrete information theory; partial information decomposition; machine learning

Name: Dr. Irina Basieva
Affiliation: International Center for Mathematical Modeling in Physics and Cognitive Science, Linnaeus University, Växjö, Sweden
Research interests: quantum mechanics; probability; laser physics; telecommunications; artificial intelligence; cognitive psychology; decision making; rationality

Name: Dr. Sergio Luiz E. F. da Silva
Affiliations: 1. DISAT, Politecnico di Torino, Turin, Italy
2. GISIS, Universidade Federal Fluminense, Niterói, Brazil
Research interests: geophysics; statistical physics; image processing; inverse problems; data analysis

Name: Prof. Dr. Michael Evans
Affiliation: Department of Statistical Sciences, University of Toronto, Toronto, Canada
Research Interests: foundations of statistical inference; measuring statistical evidence; eliciting and checking priors; measuring and controlling bias

The prize for each winner:

• CHF 500;
• A 50% discount on the APC for one paper to be published in Entropy in 2023;
• A certificate.

Entropy Editorial Office

As a leading open access publisher, MDPI provides scholars with a high-quality and rich academic exchange platform by continuously expanding into new and exciting research areas.

In December 2022, MDPI launched five new journals, covering multiple subjects such as life sciences, biology, medicine and pharmacology, social sciences and humanities. These new journals are being edited by established scholars across the world.

If you are interested in creating more open access journals with us to publish cutting-edge research, please send your journal proposal application to newjournal-committee@mdpi.com.

MDPI is pleased to announce that we now display the co-authors’ email addresses in addition to the corresponding author’s email address on the webpage of published papers, protected by Captcha. For more information about this change, please visit the journal’s instructions for authors page. 

We believe this change will facilitate academic discussions and advance our cause of open science and research. The corresponding authors are responsible for communicating with their co-authors and indicating in our system (https://susy.mdpi.com/) if co-authors would prefer for their email addresses not to be displayed.

We are pleased to announce that the winner of the Entropy 2022 Young Investigator Award is Dr. Xiao Yuan.

As the awardee, Dr. Xiao Yuan will receive an honorarium of CHF 2000, an offer to publish a paper free of charge before 31 December 2023 in Entropy (ISSN: 1099-4300) after peer review, and an electronic certificate.

We would like to thank all the nominees from various fields of study for their participation and all the Award Committee members for their evaluation of the many excellent nominations.

Prof. Dr. Kevin H. Knuth
Editor-in-Chief of Entropy

On 9 February 2023, Clarivate, a global leader in providing trusted insights and analytics, added the Preprint Citation Index to the Web of Science platform, streamlining the research process by allowing researchers to locate and link to preprints alongside other trusted content in the database.

The Preprint Citation Index will act as a bridge to connect cutting-edge preprints with peer-reviewed journal articles published within the Web of Science Core Collection. Alerts can be easily set to monitor new research across several repositories and authors will also be able to include preprints on their Web of Science Research Profile to more accurately display their various research outputs.

As of its launch, the Preprint Citation Index will provide nearly two million preprints from various repositories, including MDPI’s own Preprints.org.

MDPI's Preprints Platform – Preprints.org

To advance Open Science and the fast dissemination of research, MDPI offers researchers a free multidisciplinary preprint platform. Preprints.org accepts submissions from all research areas and offers authors high visibility, permanent archiving, article-level Metrics and immediately citable content by assigning a Digital Object Identifier (DOI) to all preprints.

During submission to any MDPI journal, authors have the option to share their research as a preprint. After an initial screening, the manuscript is available online in 48 hours or less. Once online, preprints can be downloaded, shared, commented on, and cited, providing authors maximum visibility.

We invite you to join the ranks of the over 100k researchers using Preprints.org and share your research.

For more information, please visit Preprints.org.

Date: 9 March 2023
Time: 18:30 (CET)
Webinar website: https://entropy-2.sciforum.net/
Webinar ID: 819 5910 7295
Register here:
https://us02web.zoom.us/webinar/register/8516739556759/WN_NOp7pOVsQmS1_dWouqmiLg
Participation fee: none
Language: English
Webinar keywords: irregularity, complexity, entropy, time series, multidimensional data, graphs, multivariate data
Related Special Issue: “Entropy Measures to Assess Irregularity and Complexity of Time Series and Multidimensional Data”

Chair:

Prof. Dr. Anne Humeau-Heurtier
Univ Angers, LARIS, SFR MATHSTIC, F-49000 Angers, France

Speakers:

Prof. Dr. Luca Faes
Department of Engineering, University of Palermo, 90128 Palermo, Italy
Presentation: “Recent Advances in the Information-Theoretic Analysis of Time Series: From Static to Dynamic Measures and From Multivariate Approaches to High-Order Interactions”

Dr. Hamed Azami
Centre for Addiction and Mental Health, Toronto Dementia Research Alliance, University of Toronto, Toronto, ON, Canada
Presentation: “Recent Advances in Entropy Analysis: From One-Dimensional to Multi-Dimensional”

Dr. Javier Escudero Rodriguez
School of Engineering, Institute for Digital Communications (IDCOM), The University of Edinburgh, 8 Thomas Bayes Rd, Edinburgh EH9 3FG, UK
Presentation: “From Multivariate Time Series to Graphs Data and Beyond: Extending Entropy Analysis Techniques to Irregularly Sampled Data”

We are pleased to announce the launch of a new initiative—the MDPI Special Issue Mentor Program.

This program will enable early career researchers (who must hold a Ph.D. in a related field) to experience editing a Special Issue in MDPI journals, under the mentorship of our experienced Editorial Board Members or other experienced scientists. The mentor program will provide an excellent opportunity for early career scientists to gain editorial experience, and to cultivate their ability to edit scientific research.

The mentee’s responsibilities include:

• Proposing a Special Issue title and assisting the mentor in preparing a summary (around 200–400 words) and 3–10 keywords describing the background, importance, and goal of the Issue;
• Writing a brief promotion plan for the Special Issue;
• Preparing a list of scholars who may be interested in the Issue and personally e-mailing invitations on behalf of Guest Editors;
• Writing an editorial for the online Special Issue together with the mentor.

The mentor’s responsibilities include:

• Conducting a final check before the Special Issue is published online;
• Performing editorial control of the Special Issue and quality control of the publications, both of which must be carried out in a timely manner;
• Providing suggestions to younger scholars if they have any doubts or concerns regarding submissions;
• Organizing video calls with young scholars and the Editorial Office regularly to discuss problems and improvement suggestions for the Special Issue;
• Making and submitting decisions regarding submissions with the assistance of mentees.

Certificates and awards:
After the Special Issue closes, the Editorial Office will provide official certificates for all the mentors and early career researchers.

If you are interested in this opportunity, please send your Special Issue proposal to the Editorial Office of a journal you choose, and we will discuss the process (i.e., mentor collaboration, Special Issue topic feasibility analysis, etc.) in further detail. The full list of MDPI journals is as follows: https://www.mdpi.com/about/journals.

In addition to the new Special Issue Mentor Program, we will continue to welcome all Special Issue proposals focusing on hot research topics.

Recently, Clarivate^TM revealed its 2022 list of Highly Cited Researchers^TM—individuals at universities, research institutes, and commercial organizations.

The scientists who were selected for this year’s list of Highly Cited Researchers have published highly cited papers in the 11-year period from January 2011 to December 2021, with a citation frequency in the top 1% of academic subjects and in the same year of publication in the Web of Science^TM database. Based on Web of Science citation data, 6,938 researchers from across the globe who have demonstrated a disproportionate level of significant and broad influence in their chosen field or fields over the last decade have been awarded Highly Cited Researcher 2022 designations. The list is truly global, spanning 69 countries or regions and spread across a diverse range of research sciences and social sciences.

According to statistics, seven members of the Editorial Board of Entropy (ISSN: 1099-4300) have been selected for the list of Highly Cited Researchers of Clarivate in 2022. They are being recognized for their high-quality scientific research achievements and outstanding contributions to professional fields. The Entropy journal office sincerely congratulates all elected Editorial Board Members and hopes that they continue to have an academically productive relationship with the journal.

MDPI has just become the first open access (OA) publisher to reach the milestone of one million articles published. That is one million articles freely available to all, to circulate and build upon! We are proud to share this special moment with the global scientific community.

This landmark has been reached thanks to the immeasurable support of more than 600,000 expert reviewers, 66,000 editorial board members and 6700 hard-working colleagues across MDPI’s global offices.

Within more than 25 years of publishing, our journals received 2.1 million manuscripts and generated 4.6 million peer review reports to get to one million papers published.

Reaching the milestone of one million articles published reinforces our mission to remove any existing barriers and to make scientific research accessible to all. Since its inception, MDPI’s goal has been to create reliable processes to make science open. This is a path towards facilitating the dissemination of novel insights in scientific communities.

Regular feedback from authors and reviewers shows that our service is greatly appreciated and needed. At the same time, the feedback helps us identify areas for further improvement.

As it stands, a significant share of published research findings remain closed access. More than half of the content published with the most well-known legacy publishers stays behind a paywall, and that is not including articles published in hybrid OA journals, or made available months or years after publication.

A new policy announced by the US administration in August 2022 requires that, as of January 2026, all US federally funded research be made freely and immediately available after publication. While the new policy does not mandate articles be published under an open access license, it is aligned with the open access movement in removing all barriers to research. Similarly, some of the most advanced research institutions in the world intend to have all funded research articles published in open access by 2025.

MDPI is proud to be the leading agent of the transition to open access.

"Thanks a Million" to all the contributors!

We are pleased to announce that the website of the MDPI Sustainability Foundation has been revamped! For the past couple of months, our UX UI team and front-end developers have been working hard to launch the website in time for the opening of the Sustainability Awards nominations.

The website is not the only thing that has had a remodeling. Indeed, the format of the Emerging Sustainability Leader Award (ESLA) has been updated. ESLA is now a competition open to individual researchers or start-ups founded by researchers under the age of 35. Nominee applications will go through 2 rounds of selection until the final 3 are decided. The finalists will then be invited to give pitch presentations during the Award Ceremony to win either first place (10,000 USD) or runner-up (2 x 5000 USD).

The World Sustainability Award, on the other hand, remains the same: a total prize money of 100,000 USD is up for grabs by senior individual researchers or groups of researchers from the international research community.

Nominations for both the World Sustainability Award and the Emerging Sustainability Leader award are now open! Check out our new website for more information on how to nominate.

We are pleased to announce that the Best Paper Award sponsored by Entropy (ISSN: 1099-4300) for the 2022 International Conference on Communication, Image and Signal Processing was granted to Dr. Jiayu Zhang from Sichuan University. Congratulations!

Paper: “C110: CT-Guided Automatic Path Planning for Lung Puncture”
by Jianquan Zhong, Ling Tang, Ruizhi Hao, Jinyang Shen, Jiayu Zhang, Yuhang Gong, and Jing Zhang

An automatic CT image-based path planning method for lung puncture surgery is proposed due to the high failure rate, time consumption, and high radiation dose of the existing percutaneous lung puncture surgery. The method described in this paper implements automatic organ segmentation of chest CT images. It defines six constraining conditions combined with clinical a priori knowledge to find the optimal puncture path using a multi-objective Pareto optimization method. The rationality and validity of the method were validated based on 25 sets of clinical lung mass data. Experimental results show that the optimal paths found by this system all meet the clinician's surgical requirements.

Date: 30 November 2022
Time: 05:00 p.m. (CET)
Webinar ID: 858 2367 1531
Register here: https://us02web.zoom.us/webinar/register/3316663495003/WN_d9a8x1AITxepzbVMaZrB0A
Participation fee: none
Language: English
Webinar keywords: quantum computing; quantum algorithms; quantum machine learning; quantum simulations; quantum advantage; quantum hardware; NISQ devices
Related Special Issue: “Advances in Quantum Computing”

Chairs:

Speakers:

We are pleased to announce the winner of the Best Presentation Award that Entropy (ISSN: 1099-4300) sponsored at the 7th Workshop on Complexity in Economics and Finance, held on 19 October 2022 in Palma de Mallorca, Spain. Congratulations to Kiyoshi Kanazawa!

“Statistical analysis of a microscopic financial dataset for the long-range correlation of the order flow” by Kiyoshi Kanazawa

In the financial market, it is an established fact that order flow exhibits persistence: if you observe a buy (sell) order, you will likely observe a buy (sell) order even in the future. This phenomenon, called the long-range correlation (LRC), has been a topic under debate regarding its microscopic origin. One of the promising hypotheses in econophysics is the order-splitting hypothesis: in financial markets, many traders split their large metaorders into a series of small child orders. Because their order signs are kept the same during splitting, the market order sign has a (slight) predictability. This hypothesis was mathematically formulated by Lillo, Mike, and Farmer (LMF) in 2007. Interestingly, the LMF model predicts a quantitative relationship between a microscopic parameter (the power-law exponent of the metaorder-size distribution) and a macroscopic parameter (the power-law exponent for the order-sign autocorrelation function). In this talk, we present our statistical analysis to confirm the LMF prediction using a microscopic Tokyo Stock Exchange dataset. We develop a statistical method to measure the power-law exponents with less statistical bias, and we apply the method to confirm the LMF prediction. A long-standing problem in econophysics has been solved by our detailed data analysis of a microscopic financial dataset.

We are pleased to announce that the Best Poster Awards, sponsored by Entropy (ISSN: 1099-4300) for the 14th Italian Quantum Information Science Conference (IQIS 2022), were granted to Veronica Panizza (University of Trento) and Giovanni Di Fresco (University of Palermo). Congratulations!

The winning posters are as follows:

“Entanglement Witnessing for Lattice Gauge Theories”
by Veronica Panizza
Abstract: LGTs are at the core of fundamental physics and, recently, substantial theoretical and experimental efforts have gone into simulating LGTs using quantum technologies. In the quantum realm, entanglement plays a crucial role and its detection can be efficiently performed using entanglement witnesses. Yet, entanglement witnessing in LGTs is extremely challenging due to the gauge constraints, that severely limit the operators that can be employed to detect quantum correlations. In this work, we develop the theoretical framework of entanglement witnessing in lattice gauge theories and, by way of illustration, consider bipartite entanglement witnesses in a U(1) LGT (with and without fermionic matter). Our framework, which avoids the costly measurements required, e.g., by full-tomography, opens the way to future theoretical and experimental studies of entanglement in an important class of many-body models.

“Criticality and Compatibility in Multi-Parameter Quantum Metrology”
by Giovanni Di Fresco
Abstract: Many-body systems near a quantum phase transition (QPT) exhibit several properties which makes them appealing for metrological purposes. Indeed, it is now well established that the divergences of the quantum Fisher information (QFI) observed near a QPT can be used to increase the precision in the estimation of a parameter. Meanwhile, when it comes to the simultaneous estimation of multiple parameters, the benefits of criticality are much harder to analyze due to possible incompatibilities arising from the Heisenberg uncertainty. This involves the use of quite convoluted quantities, as the Holevo-Cramer-Rao bound, which are generally difficult to evaluate. Here we study the quantumness (R), a scalar index, which provides an asymptotic bound on the compatibility of a metrological scheme. The advantage of this approach is that R can be easily evaluated once the QFI and the mean Uhmlann curvature are known. Moreover, a scaling analysis of R reveals that many-body criticalities generally improve the compatibility in a multi-parameter framework. We also evaluate R in different representative systems, such as Ising chain and XY chain, in which we find this positive criticality effects.

Peer Review Week began 19 September 2022 under the theme of “Research Integrity: Creating and Supporting Trust in Research”. Through various blog articles, podcast, and webinar, we discussed this crucial subject throughout the week, celebrating the essential role peer review plays in maintaining research quality.

To begin, we held a Webinar on the topic. Professor Peter W. Choate and Dr. Emmanuel Obeng-Gyasi joined Dr. Ioana Craciun, one of MDPI’s scientific officers, for an in-depth discussion.

We invite you to view the event recording:

During the week, the MDPI Blog in a series articles highlighted how good Peer Review safeguards research integrity. The following topics were covered:

• Peer Review Week 2022
• Research Integrity
• What We’ve Learned About Peer Review Reports
• 4 Steps to the Perfect Peer Review Report
• How to Write the Perfect Peer Review Report: An Interview
• Inviting Great Peer Reviewers

In a new edition of Insight Faster, an MDPI podcast, we were delighted to talk to the co-chairs of the Peer Review Week committee, Jayashree Rajagopalan (Senior Manager of Global Community Engagement for CACTUS) and Danielle Padula (Head of Marketing and Community Development at Scholastica) to get their take on this year’s event and its related topics.

You can find the Podcast here.

We hope you enjoy the contents!

1. “Deep Ensemble of Weighted Viterbi Decoders for Tail-Biting Convolutional Codes”
by Tomer Raviv, Asaf Schwartz and Yair Be’ery
Entropy 2021, 23(1), 93; https://doi.org/10.3390/e23010093
Available online: https://www.mdpi.com/1099-4300/23/1/93

2. “Non Stationary Multi-Armed Bandit: Empirical Evaluation of a New Concept Drift-Aware Algorithm”
by Emanuele Cavenaghi, Gabriele Sottocornola, Fabio Stella and Markus Zanker
Entropy 2021, 23(3), 380; https://doi.org/10.3390/e23030380
Available online: https://www.mdpi.com/1099-4300/23/3/380

3. “Getting Ahead of the Arms Race: Hothousing the Coevolution of VirusTotal with a Packer”
by Héctor D. Menéndez, David Clark and Earl T. Barr
Entropy 2021, 23(4), 395; https://doi.org/10.3390/e23040395
Available online: https://www.mdpi.com/1099-4300/23/4/395

4. “Federated Quantum Machine Learning”
by Samuel Yen-Chi Chen and Shinjae Yoo
Entropy 2021, 23(4), 460; https://doi.org/10.3390/e23040460
Available online: https://www.mdpi.com/1099-4300/23/4/460

5. “A Review on Machine Learning Approaches for Network Malicious Behavior Detection in Emerging Technologies”
by Mahdi Rabbani, Yongli Wang, Reza Khoshkangini, Hamed Jelodar, Ruxin Zhao, Sajjad Bagheri Baba Ahmadi and Seyedvalyallah Ayobi
Entropy 2021, 23(5), 529; https://doi.org/10.3390/e23050529
Available online: https://www.mdpi.com/1099-4300/23/5/529

6. “A Hybrid Analysis-Based Approach to Android Malware Family Classification”
by Chao Ding, Nurbol Luktarhan, Bei Lu and Wenhui Zhang
Entropy 2021, 23(8), 1009; https://doi.org/10.3390/e23081009
Available online: https://www.mdpi.com/1099-4300/23/8/1009

7. “Solving Schrödinger Bridges via Maximum Likelihood”
by Francisco Vargas, Pierre Thodoroff, Austen Lamacraft and Neil Lawrence
Entropy 2021, 23(9), 1134; https://doi.org/10.3390/e23091134
Available online: https://www.mdpi.com/1099-4300/23/9/1134

8. “Deep Task-Based Quantization”
by Nir Shlezinger and Yonina C. Eldar
Entropy 2021, 23(1), 104; https://doi.org/10.3390/e23010104
Available online: https://www.mdpi.com/1099-4300/23/1/104

9. “Automatic ECG Classification Using Continuous Wavelet Transform and Convolutional Neural Network”
by Tao Wang, Changhua Lu, Yining Sun, Mei Yang, Chun Liu and Chunsheng Ou
Entropy 2021, 23(1), 119; https://doi.org/10.3390/e23010119
Available online: https://www.mdpi.com/1099-4300/23/1/119

10. “A New Deep Dual Temporal Domain Adaptation Method for Online Detection of Bearings Early Fault”
by Wentao Mao, Bin Sun and Liyun Wang
Entropy 2021, 23(2), 162; https://doi.org/10.3390/e23020162
Available online: https://www.mdpi.com/1099-4300/23/2/162

11. “An Efficient DenseNet-Based Deep Learning Model for Malware Detection”
by Jeyaprakash Hemalatha, S. Abijah Roseline, Subbiah Geetha, Seifedine Kadry and Robertas Damaševičius
Entropy 2021, 23(3), 344; https://doi.org/10.3390/e23030344
Available online: https://www.mdpi.com/1099-4300/23/3/344

12. “A Hybrid Method Based on Extreme Learning Machine and Wavelet Transform Denoising for Stock Prediction”
by Dingming Wu, Xiaolong Wang and Shaocong Wu
Entropy 2021, 23(4), 440; https://doi.org/10.3390/e23040440
Available online: https://www.mdpi.com/1099-4300/23/4/440

13. “Deep Learning Methods for Heart Sounds Classification: A Systematic Review”
by Wei Chen, Qiang Sun, Xiaomin Chen, Gangcai Xie, Huiqun Wu and Chen Xu
Entropy 2021, 23(6), 667; https://doi.org/10.3390/e23060667
Available online: https://www.mdpi.com/1099-4300/23/6/667

14. “Deep Learning for Walking Behaviour Detection in Elderly People Using Smart Footwear”
by Rocío Aznar-Gimeno, Gorka Labata-Lezaun, Ana Adell-Lamora, David Abadía-Gallego, Rafael del-Hoyo-Alonso and Carlos González-Muñoz
Entropy 2021, 23(6), 777; https://doi.org/10.3390/e23060777
Available online: https://www.mdpi.com/1099-4300/23/6/777

15. “Compression Helps Deep Learning in Image Classification”
by En-Hui Yang, Hossam Amer and Yanbing Jiang
Entropy 2021, 23(7), 881; https://doi.org/10.3390/e23070881
Available online: https://www.mdpi.com/1099-4300/23/7/881

16. “Differentiable PAC–Bayes Objectives with Partially Aggregated Neural Networks”
by Felix Biggs and Benjamin Guedj
Entropy 2021, 23(10), 1280; https://doi.org/10.3390/e23101280
Available online: https://www.mdpi.com/1099-4300/23/10/1280

17. “A Lightweight YOLOv4-Based Forestry Pest Detection Method Using Coordinate Attention and Feature Fusion”
by Mingfeng Zha, Wenbin Qian, Wenlong Yi and Jing Hua
Entropy 2021, 23(12), 1587; https://doi.org/10.3390/e23121587
Available online: https://www.mdpi.com/1099-4300/23/12/1587

MDPI will be attending the Conference on Complex Systems (CCS2022) in Palma de Mallorca, Spain, which will take place from 17 to 21 October 2022. The CCS is the largest and most important annual meeting of the international complex systems community. It comes under the auspices of the Complex Systems Society. This edition, organized by IFISC, takes place after previous events held in Lyon, Singapore, Thessaloniki, and Cancun.

The following MDPI journals will be represented:

• Entropy;
• Fractal and Fractional;
• Symmetry;
• Mathematics;
• Dynamics;
• Algorithms;
• Systems;
• Informatics;
• MAKE;
• Information;
• Future Internet;
• Applied System Innovation;
• Data.

If you are attending this conference, please feel free to stop by our booth. Our delegates look forward to meeting you in person to answer any questions you may have. For more information about the conference, please visit the following link: https://www.ccs2022.org/.

We are pleased to announce the Best ECR (Early Career Researcher) Presentation Award, sponsored by Entropy (ISSN: 1099-4300) for CNS*2022 Workshop on Methods of Information Theory in Computational Neuroscience, which was granted to Dr. Demi Gao at the University of Melbourne. Congratulations!

“Towards Personalised Cochlear Implants: Quantifying Hearing Performance Using Information Theory”

Abstract:
Despite the development and success of cochlear implants over several decades, wide inter-subject variability in speech perception is reported. This suggests that cochlear implant user-dependent factors limit speech perception at the individual level. Clinical studies have demonstrated the importance of the number, placement, and insertion depths of electrodes on speech recognition abilities. However, these do not account for all inter-subject variability and to what extent these factors affect speech recognition abilities has not been studied. We unified information theoretic method and machine learning technique to quantitatively study the extent to which key factors limit the hearing performance with cochlear implants. The approach provides insights into personalised strategies for improving speech recognition outcomes.

We are pleased to announce the winners of the two poster awards sponsored by Entropy (ISSN: 1099-4300) from MaxEnt 2022—the 41st International Conference on Bayesian and Maximum Entropy Methods in Science and Engineering, which took place in Paris (France) from 18 to 22 July 2022.

1st prize
“Efficient representations of spatially variant point spread functions in Bayesian imaging algorithms”
by Vincent Eberle, Philipp Frank, Julia Stadler, Silvan Streit, Torsten Enßlin

Bayesian imaging algorithms are becoming increasingly important in, e.g., astronomy, medicine, and biology. Given that many of these algorithms compute iterative solutions to high-dimensional inverse problems, the efficiency and accuracy of the instrument response representation are of high importance for the imaging process. For this reason, point spread functions, which make up a large fraction of the response functions of telescopes and microscopes, are usually assumed to be spatially invariant in a given field of view and can thus be represented by convolution. For many instruments, this assumption does not hold and degrades the accuracy of the instrument representation. We discuss the application of butterfly transforms, which are linear neural network structures whose size scales with the number of data points subquadratically. Butterfly transforms are efficient by design since they are inspired by the structure of the Cooley–Tukey Fast Fourier transform algorithm. We combine them into butterfly networks in several ways, compare the different architectures with respect to their performance, and identify a representation that is suitable for the efficient representation of a synthetic spatially variant point spread function with up to a 1% error.

2nd prize
“Modelling of aortic dissection with Beta random fields and uncertainty propagation with a Bayesian variational auto-encoder”
by Sascha Ranftl, Malte Rolf-Pissarczyk, GloriaWolkerstorfer, Antonio Pepe, Jan Egger, Gerhard A. Holzapfel, Wolfgang von der Linden

In this work, we create a stochastic constitutive model for arterial tissue mechanics and utilize deep learning surrogates in order to facilitate the ensuing propagation of uncertainties to the Cauchy stress fields resulting from tissue response to a mechanical load. In particular, "aortic dissection" is a dangerous disease that is linked to the stochastic and spatially heterogeneous degradation of the elastin fibers in aortic tissue. Here, this degradation is modeled as a "Beta" random field, i.e., a random field for which every marginal follows a Beta distribution, through a suitable combination of auxiliary Gaussian random fields. Based on this, the Cauchy stress fields in the tissue are computed using a finite element method in response to a mechanical load. Due to the stochasticity of the constitutive model in the input parameters, it is necessary to propagate these uncertainties to the computed mechanical Cauchy stress fields in order to make the simulations interpretable. The prohibitive computational effort of this latter step makes uncertainty propagation with direct sampling infeasible, instead requiring a surrogate model to be learned from a small number of samples from the finite element simulation. The structure of the input data, i.e., "Beta" random field realizations of the tissue's fibers degradation, and the output data, i.e., resulting mechanical Cauchy stress fields, define a problem similar to image-to-image (I2I) regression. This I2I problem structure suggests a convolutional neural network as a surrogate that is well-suited for learning the relationship between the spatial correlations. Here, we chose a Bayesian Variational Auto-Encoder (B-VAE) architecture. After training with Stein Variational Gradient Descent, the B-VAE can subsequently predict approximate Cauchy stress field samples from "Beta" random field samples several orders of magnitude faster, and with non-parametric Variational Inference, it can estimate the PDF of the predicted mechanical Cauchy stress fields. The study is presented within the framework of a rigorous Bayesian analysis. The results quantify the precision of such biomechanical simulations, and biologically relevant implications such as tissue rupture probabilities can be quantified.

Reference: Ranftl, S., Rolf-Pissarczyk, M., Wolkerstorfer, G., Pepe, A., Egger, J., von der Linden, W, & Holzapfel, G.A. (2022). “Stochastic Modeling of Inhomogeneities in the Aortic Wall and Uncertainty Quantification using a Bayesian Encoder-Decoder Surrogate”. ArXiv: abs/2202.10244

In order to acknowledge our reviewers, who so generously dedicate their time to reviewing papers and demonstrate diligence, professionalism, and timeliness when reviewing manuscripts, MDPI journals regularly offer outstanding reviewer awards to scholars who participate in the peer-review process.

We are proud to recognize this year’s winners in the “Physical Sciences” category for their outstanding contributions among extensive competition by presenting them with an Outstanding Reviewer Award.

We would like to take this opportunity to congratulate all of the winners on their achievement. MDPI will continue to provide support and recognition to the academic community.

Entropy:

• Jim W. Kay, University of Glasgow, UK;
• Christophe Chesneau, University of Caen, France;
• Esteban Tlelo-Cuautle, Instituto Nacional de Astrofísica, Óptica y Electrónica (INAOE), Mexico;
• Dennis Dieks, Utrecht University, The Netherlands;
• Claudio Cremaschini, Silesian University in Opava, Czech Republic.

Photonics:

• Carlos A. F. Marques, University of Aveiro, Portugal;
• Tatiana Latychevskaia, Paul Scherrer Institute, Switzerland.

Universe:

• Amit Kashi, Ariel University, Israel;
• Dominik Elsaesser, Technical University of Dortmund, Germany;
• Isaac Tutusaus, Instituto de Ciencias del Espacio, Spain;
• Jose A.R. Cembranos, Universidad Complutense de Madrid, Spain;
• Kazuharu Bamba, Fukushima University, Japan;
• Przemyslaw Malkiewicz, National Centre for Nuclear Research, Poland;
• Szymon Piotr Harabasz, Technical University of Darmstadt, Germany;
• Theocharis Kosmas, University of Ioannina, Greece;
• Viktor Toth, Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics, Canada;
• Vitor De Souza, Universidade de São Paulodisabled, Brazil.

We are proud to recognize the winners of MDPI’s 2021 Travel Awards in the “Physical Sciences” category for their outstanding presentations and to present them with the prize.

MDPI journals regularly offer travel awards to encourage talented junior scientists to present their latest research at academic conferences in specific fields, which helps to increase their influence.

The winners mentioned below were carefully selected by the journal editors based on an outline of their research and the work to be presented at an academic conference.

We would like to warmly congratulate the winners of this year’s Travel Awards and wish them the greatest success with their future research endeavors. MDPI will continue to enhance communication among scientists.

Galaxies:

• Mahdis Ghodrati, Yangzhou University, China;
• Sandra Etoka, University of Manchester, UK.

Instruments:

• Adriana Dias, University of London, UK.

Photonics:

• Aleksandrs Leitis, École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne, Switzerland;
• Elena Losero, École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne, Switzerland;
• Zhifeng Zhang, University of Pennsylvania, USA.

The purpose of our Best Paper Awards is to promote and recognize the most impactful contributions published within MDPI journals.

The editors of each journal carefully selected reviews and research papers through a rigorous judging process based on criteria such as the scientific merit, overall impact, and the quality of presentation of the papers published in the journal last year.

We are honored to present the winners in the “Physical Sciences” category, who were selected amongst extensive competition, and congratulate the authors for their outstanding scientific publications.

MDPI will continue to provide support and recognition to the academic community.

Entropy:

• “Classical (Local and Contextual) Probability Model for Bohm–Bell Type Experiments: No-Signaling as Independence of Random Variables”
  By Andrei Khrennikov and Alexander Alodjants
  Entropy 2019, 21(2), 157; doi 10.3390/e21020157
• “Nonlinear Information Bottleneck”
  By Artemy Kolchinsky, Brendan D. Tracey and David H. Wolpert
  Entropy 2019, 21(12), 1181; doi 10.3390/e21121181
• “Dynamic Maximum Entropy Reduction”
  By Václav Klika, Michal Pavelka, Petr Vágner and Miroslav Grmela
  Entropy 2019, 21(7), 715; doi 10.3390/e21070715
• “Topological Information Data Analysis”
  By Pierre Baudot, Monica Tapia, Daniel Bennequin and Jean-Marc Goaillard
  Entropy 2019, 21(9), 869; doi 10.3390/e21090869

Universe:

• “Nonsingular Black Holes in ƒ (R) Theories”
  By Gonzalo J. Olmo and Diego Rubiera-Garcia
  Universe 2015, 1(2), 173-185; doi 10.3390/universe1020173
• “Is It No Longer Necessary to Test Cosmologies with Type Ia Supernovae?”
  By Ram Gopal Vishwakarma and Jayant V. Narlikar
  Universe 2018, 4(6), 73; doi 10.3390/universe4060073
• “A Universe that Does Not Know the Time”
  By João Magueijo and Lee Smolin
  Universe 2019, 5(3), 84 ; doi 10.3390/universe5030084
• “Seeing Black Holes: From the Computer to the Telescope”
  By Jean-Pierre Luminet
  Universe 2018, 4(8), 86; doi 10.3390/universe4080086

We are pleased to announce the winners of the two poster awards sponsored by Entropy (ISSN: 1099-4300) from Quantum Information and Probability: from Foundations to Engineering (QIP22), which took place in Växö (Sweden) from 14 to 18 June 2022.

1st prize
"Delayed Choice and Bohmian Trajectories Investigated with Entangled Photons in a Double Slit"
by Jan Dziewior

Bohmian mechanics, a hidden-variable interpretation of quantum mechanics, ascribes reality to the positions and momenta of quantum particles at the cost of a non-local ontology. Thus, contrary to standard quantum mechanics, it allows one to conceive of definite particle trajectories while being fully compatible with the standard theory in all empirical predictions. Nevertheless, the plausibility of the Bohmian picture was called into question by a double-slit Gedankenexperiment conducted by Englert et al. [1], which initiated a lively controversy. While most of the proponents of Bohmian mechanics agreed with the predictions of Englert et al., their conclusions have been criticized. Here, the experimental realization of this Gedankenexperiment is presented. The conditions for the occurrence of so-called “surrealistic” trajectories are realized by using a pair of entangled photons, where one of the photons is sent into an optical double-slit interferometer. The average trajectories are recorded using a method inspired by weak measurements [2,3]. By avoiding the measurement of the second photon as long as the trajectories of the first one are measured, it is possible to realize a delayed choice scenario, fully illustrating the contrasting inferences of standard and Bohmian quantum mechanics.

[1] Englert, B., Scully, M., Sussmann G., Walther, H., Surrealistic Bohm Trajectories, Zeitschrift fur Naturforschung A, 47 1175-1186 (1992).
[2] Wiseman, H. M., Grounding Bohmian mechanics in weak values and bayesianism, New J. Phys. 9 165 (2007).
[3] Mahler, D. et al., Experimental nonlocal and surreal Bohmian trajectories, Science Advances, 2 2 (2016).

2nd prize
“Inconsistency of linear dynamics and Born's rule”
by Lotte Mertens

Modern experiments conducted using nanoscale devices come ever closer to bridging the divide between the quantum and classical realms, bringing experimental tests of objective collapse theories that propose alterations to Schrödinger’s equation within reach. Such objective collapse theories aim to explain the emergence of classical dynamics in the thermodynamic limit and hence resolve the inconsistency that exists within the axioms of quantum mechanics when assuming measurements can be described by quantum mechanics as well. Here, we show that requiring the emergence of Born’s rule for relative frequencies of measurement outcomes without imposing them as part of any axiom implies that such objective collapse theories cannot be linear. Previous suggestions regarding the proof of the emergence of Born’s rule in classes of problems that include linear objective collapse theories are analyzed and shown to include hidden assumptions.

We are pleased to invite you to read papers from the “Editor’s Choice Articles” in 2021. We have carefully curated a list of high-quality articles from the Section “Thermodynamics” below:

• “Medium Entropy Reduction and Instability in Stochastic Systems with Distributed Delay”
  by Loos, S.A.M. et al.
  Entropy 2021, 23(6), 696; https://doi.org/10.3390/e23060696
  Available online: https://www.mdpi.com/1099-4300/23/6/696

• “Stirling Refrigerating Machine Modeling Using Schmidt and Finite Physical Dimensions Thermodynamic Models: A Comparison with Experiments”
  by Dobre, C. et al.
  Entropy 2021, 23(3), 368; https://doi.org/10.3390/e23030368
  Available online: https://www.mdpi.com/1099-4300/23/3/368

• “Josephson Currents and Gap Enhancement in Graph Arrays of Superconductive Islands”
  by Lucci, M. et al.
  Entropy 2021, 23(7), 811; https://doi.org/10.3390/e23070811
  Available online: https://www.mdpi.com/1099-4300/23/7/811

• “The Carnot Cycle, Reversibility and Entropy”
  by Sands, D.
  Entropy 2021, 23(7), 810; https://doi.org/10.3390/e23070810
  Available online: https://www.mdpi.com/1099-4300/23/7/810

• “Information Thermodynamics and Reducibility of Large Gene Networks”
  by Sarkar, S. et al.
  Entropy 2021, 23(1), 63; https://doi.org/10.3390/e23010063
  Available online: https://www.mdpi.com/1099-4300/23/1/63

• “A Thermodynamic Approach to Measuring Entropy in a Few-Electron Nanodevice”
  by Pyurbeeva, E. et al.
  Entropy 2021, 23(6), 640; https://doi.org/10.3390/e23060640
  Available online: https://www.mdpi.com/1099-4300/23/6/640 

We would like to take this opportunity to thank all the research groups that submitted these exceptional papers for their contributions to Entropy (ISSN: 1099-4300). We would appreciate it if you would circulate this document among your colleagues or through your network.

If you would like to learn more about the contributions published in the “Editor’s Choice Articles”, please click on the following link: https://www.mdpi.com/journal/entropy/editors_choice.

It is our pleasure to invite you to read the selected papers from the “Editor’s Choice Articles” in 2021. The papers from the Section “Statistical Physics” are listed below:

• “Causality and Information Transfer Between the Solar Wind and the Magnetosphere–Ionosphere System”
  by Manshour, P. et al.
  Entropy 2021, 23(4), 390; https://doi.org/10.3390/e23040390
  Available online: https://www.mdpi.com/1099-4300/23/4/390

• “Coupling between Blood Pressure and Subarachnoid Space Width Oscillations during Slow Breathing”
  by Gruszecka, A. et al.
  Entropy 2021, 23(1), 113; https://doi.org/10.3390/e23010113
  Available online: https://www.mdpi.com/1099-4300/23/1/113

• “Dynamics of Ion Channels via Non-Hermitian Quantum Mechanics”
  by Gulden, T. et al.
  Entropy 2021, 23(1), 125; https://doi.org/10.3390/e23010125
  Available online: https://www.mdpi.com/1099-4300/23/1/125

• “Gradient Profile Estimation Using Exponential Cubic Spline Smoothing in a Bayesian Framework”
  by De Silva, K. et al.
  Entropy 2021, 23(6), 674; https://doi.org/10.3390/e23060674
  Available online: https://www.mdpi.com/1099-4300/23/6/674

• “Spectral Properties of Effective Dynamics from Conditional Expectations”
  by Nüske, F. et al.
  Entropy 2021, 23(2), 134; https://doi.org/10.3390/e23020134
  Available online: https://www.mdpi.com/1099-4300/23/2/134

• “Ground-State Properties and Phase Separation of Binary Mixtures in Mesoscopic Ring Lattices”
  by Penna, V. et al.
  Entropy 2021, 23(7), 821; https://doi.org/10.3390/e23070821
  Available online: https://www.mdpi.com/1099-4300/23/7/821

• “A Semi-Deterministic Random Walk with Resetting”
  by Villarroel, J. et al.
  Entropy 2021, 23(7), 825; https://doi.org/10.3390/e23070825
  Available online: https://www.mdpi.com/1099-4300/23/7/825

We would like to take this opportunity to thank all the research groups that submitted these exceptional papers for their contributions to Entropy (ISSN: 1099-4300). We would greatly appreciate it if you could circulate this document among your colleagues or through your network.

If you would like to learn more about the contributions published in the “Editor’s Choice Articles”, please click on the following link: https://www.mdpi.com/journal/entropy/editors_choice.

It is our pleasure to invite you to read the selected papers from the “Editor’s Choice Articles” in 2021. The papers from the Section “Signal and Data Analysis” are listed below:

• “Deep Task-Based Quantization”
  by Shlezinger, N. et al.
  Entropy 2021, 23(1), 104; https://doi.org/10.3390/e23010104
  Available online: https://www.mdpi.com/1099-4300/23/1/104

• “Phase Transitions in Transfer Learning for High-Dimensional Perceptrons”
  by Dhifallah, O. et al.
  Entropy 2021, 23(4), 400; https://doi.org/10.3390/e23040400
  Available online: https://www.mdpi.com/1099-4300/23/4/400

• “Novel Features for Binary Time Series Based on Branch Length Similarity Entropy”
  by Lee, S.-H. et al.
  Entropy 2021, 23(4), 480; https://doi.org/10.3390/e23040480
  Available online: https://www.mdpi.com/1099-4300/23/4/480

• “Field Theoretical Approach for Signal Detection in Nearly Continuous Positive Spectra II: Tensorial Data”
  by Lahoche, V. et al.
  Entropy 2021, 23(7), 795; https://doi.org/10.3390/e23070795
  Available online: https://www.mdpi.com/1099-4300/23/7/795  

We would like to take this opportunity to thank all the research groups that submitted these exceptional papers for their contributions to Entropy (ISSN: 1099-4300). We would greatly appreciate it if you could circulate this document among your colleagues or through your network.

If you would like to learn more about the contributions published in the “Editor’s Choice Articles”, please click on the following link: https://www.mdpi.com/journal/entropy/editors_choice.

It is our pleasure to invite you to read the selected papers from the “Editor’s Choice Articles” in 2021. The papers from the Section “Quantum Information” are listed below:

• “Switching and Swapping of Quantum Information: Entropy and Entanglement Level”
  by Sawerwain, M. et al.
  Entropy 2021, 23(6), 717; https://doi.org/10.3390/e23060717
  Available online: https://www.mdpi.com/1099-4300/23/6/717

• “Beyond Causal Explanation: Einstein’s Principle Not Reichenbach’s”
  by Silberstein, M. et al.
  Entropy 2021, 23(1), 114; https://doi.org/10.3390/e23010114
  Available online: https://www.mdpi.com/1099-4300/23/1/114

• “The Phase Space Model of Nonrelativistic Quantum Mechanics”
  by Tosiek, J. et al.
  Entropy 2021, 23(5), 581; https://doi.org/10.3390/e23050581
  Available online: https://www.mdpi.com/1099-4300/23/5/581

• “The Principle of Covariance and the Hamiltonian Formulation of General Relativity”
  by Tessarotto, M. et al.
  Entropy 2021, 23(2), 215; https://doi.org/10.3390/e23020215
  Available online: https://www.mdpi.com/1099-4300/23/2/215

• “On the Classical Capacity of General Quantum Gaussian Measurement”
  by Holevo, A.
  Entropy 2021, 23(3), 377; https://doi.org/10.3390/e23030377
  Available online: https://www.mdpi.com/1099-4300/23/3/377

• “Advances in Atomtronics”
  by Pepino, R.A.
  Entropy 2021, 23(5), 534; https://doi.org/10.3390/e23050534
  Available online: https://www.mdpi.com/1099-4300/23/5/534

• “Entanglement and Non-Locality in Quantum Protocols with Identical Particles”
  by Benatti, F. et al.
  Entropy 2021, 23(4), 479; https://doi.org/10.3390/e23040479
  Available online: https://www.mdpi.com/1099-4300/23/4/479

• “Lapsing Quickly into Fatalism: Bell on Backward Causation”
  by Norsen, T. et al.
  Entropy 2021, 23(2), 251; https://doi.org/10.3390/e23020251
  Available online: https://www.mdpi.com/1099-4300/23/2/251

• “Quantum Speed Limit and Divisibility of the Dynamical Map”
  by Teittinen, J. et al.
  Entropy 2021, 23(3), 331; https://doi.org/10.3390/e23030331
  Available online: https://www.mdpi.com/1099-4300/23/3/331

• “Federated Quantum Machine Learning”
  by Chen, S. Y.-C. et al.
  Entropy 2021, 23(4), 460; https://doi.org/10.3390/e23040460
  Available online: https://www.mdpi.com/1099-4300/23/4/460

• “Unveiling Operator Growth Using Spin Correlation Functions”
  by Carrega, M. et al.
  Entropy 2021, 23(5), 587; https://doi.org/10.3390/e23050587
  Available online: https://www.mdpi.com/1099-4300/23/5/587  

We would like to take this opportunity to thank all the research groups that submitted these exceptional papers for their contributions to Entropy (ISSN: 1099-4300). We would greatly appreciate it if you could circulate this document among your colleagues or through your network.

If you would like to learn more about the contributions published in the “Editor’s Choice Articles”, please click on the following link: https://www.mdpi.com/journal/entropy/editors_choice.

It is our pleasure to invite you to read the selected papers from the “Editor’s Choice Articles” in 2021. The papers from the Section “Non-equilibrium Phenomena” are listed below:

• “Characterization of a Two-Photon Quantum Battery: Initial Conditions, Stability and Work Extraction”
  by Delmonte, A. et al.
  Entropy 2021, 23(5), 612; https://doi.org/10.3390/e23050612
  Available online: https://www.mdpi.com/1099-4300/23/5/612

• “Stochastic Thermodynamics of a Piezoelectric Energy Harvester Model”
  by Costanzo, L. et al.
  Entropy 2021, 23(6), 677; https://doi.org/10.3390/e23060677
  Available online: https://www.mdpi.com/1099-4300/23/6/677  

We would like to take this opportunity to thank all the research groups that submitted these exceptional papers for their contributions to Entropy (ISSN: 1099-4300). We would greatly appreciate it if you could circulate this document among your colleagues or through your network.

If you would like to learn more about the contributions published in the “Editor’s Choice Articles”, please click on the following link: https://www.mdpi.com/journal/entropy/editors_choice.

It is our pleasure to invite you to read the selected papers from the “Editor’s Choice Articles” in 2021. The papers from the Section “Multidisciplinary Applications” are listed below:

• “Crowded Trades, Market Clustering, and Price Instability”
  by van Kralingen, M. et al.
  Entropy 2021, 23(3), 336; https://doi.org/10.3390/e23030336
  Available online: https://www.mdpi.com/1099-4300/23/3/336

• “High-Entropy Alloys for Advanced Nuclear Applications”
  by Pickering, E.J. et al.
  Entropy 2021, 23(1), 98; https://doi.org/10.3390/e23010098
  Available online: https://www.mdpi.com/1099-4300/23/1/98

• “Disentangling the Information in Species Interaction Networks”
  by Stock, M. et al.
  Entropy 2021, 23(6), 703; https://doi.org/10.3390/e23060703
  Available online: https://www.mdpi.com/1099-4300/23/6/703

• “The Effect of a Hidden Source on the Estimation of Connectivity Networks from Multivariate Time Series”
  by Koutlis, C. et al.
  Entropy 2021, 23(2), 208; https://doi.org/10.3390/e23020208
  Available online: https://www.mdpi.com/1099-4300/23/2/208

• “Intelligent Online Monitoring of Rolling Bearing: Diagnosis and Prognosis”
  by Hotait, H. et al.
  Entropy 2021, 23(7), 791; https://doi.org/10.3390/e23070791
  Available online: https://www.mdpi.com/1099-4300/23/7/791

• “A Maximum Entropy Model of Bounded Rational Decision-Making with Prior Beliefs and Market Feedback”
  by Evans, B.P. et al.
  Entropy 2021, 23(6), 669; https://doi.org/10.3390/e23060669
  Available online: https://www.mdpi.com/1099-4300/23/6/669

• “The Impact of Linear Filter Preprocessing in the Interpretation of Permutation Entropy”
  by Dávalos, A. et al.
  Entropy 2021, 23(7), 787; https://doi.org/10.3390/e23070787
  Available online: https://www.mdpi.com/1099-4300/23/7/787

• “Selection of Embedding Dimension and Delay Time in Phase Space Reconstruction via Symbolic Dynamics”
  by Matilla-García, M. et al.
  Entropy 2021, 23(2), 221; https://doi.org/10.3390/e23020221
  Available online: https://www.mdpi.com/1099-4300/23/2/221

• “On-Road Detection of Driver Fatigue and Drowsiness during Medium-Distance Journeys”
  by Salvati, L. et al.
  Entropy 2021, 23(2), 135; https://doi.org/10.3390/e23020135
  Available online: https://www.mdpi.com/1099-4300/23/2/135

• “The Role of Entropy in Construct Specification Equations (CSE) to Improve the Validity of Memory Tests”
  by Melin, J. et al.
  Entropy 2021, 23(2), 212; https://doi.org/10.3390/e23020212
  Available online: https://www.mdpi.com/1099-4300/23/2/212

We would like to take this opportunity to thank all the research groups that submitted these exceptional papers for their contributions to Entropy (ISSN: 1099-4300). We would greatly appreciate it if you could circulate this document among your colleagues or through your network.

If you would like to learn more about the contributions published in the “Editor’s Choice Articles”, please click on the following link: https://www.mdpi.com/journal/entropy/editors_choice.

It is our pleasure to invite you to read the selected papers from the “Editor’s Choice Articles” in 2021. The papers from the Section “Information Theory, Probability and Statistics” are listed below:

• “Computing Accurate Probabilistic Estimates of One-D Entropy from Equiprobable Random Samples”
  by Gupta, H.V. et al.
  Entropy 2021, 23(6), 740; https://doi.org/10.3390/e23060740
  Available online: https://www.mdpi.com/1099-4300/23/6/740

• “Information Theory for Agents in Artificial Intelligence, Psychology, and Economics”
  by Harré, M.S.
  Entropy 2021, 23(3), 310; https://doi.org/10.3390/e23030310
  Available online: https://www.mdpi.com/1099-4300/23/3/310

• “Accuracy-Risk Trade-Off Due to Social Learning in Crowd-Sourced Financial Predictions”
  by Adjodah, D. et al.
  Entropy 2021, 23(7), 801; https://doi.org/10.3390/e23070801
  Available online: https://www.mdpi.com/1099-4300/23/7/801

• “Information and Self-Organization II: Steady State and Phase Transition”
  by Haken, H. et al.
  Entropy 2021, 23(6), 707; https://doi.org/10.3390/e23060707
  Available online: https://www.mdpi.com/1099-4300/23/6/707

• “Information Geometric Theory in the Prediction of Abrupt Changes in System Dynamics”
  by Guel-Cortez, A.-J. et al.
  Entropy 2021, 23(6), 694; https://doi.org/10.3390/e23060694
  Available online: https://www.mdpi.com/1099-4300/23/6/694

• “Mechanism Integrated Information”
  by Barbosa, L.S. et al.
  Entropy 2021, 23(3), 362; https://doi.org/10.3390/e23030362
  Available online: https://www.mdpi.com/1099-4300/23/3/362

• “On Representations of Divergence Measures and Related Quantities in Exponential Families”
  by Bedbur, S. et al.
  Entropy 2021, 23(6), 726; https://doi.org/10.3390/e23060726
  Available online: https://www.mdpi.com/1099-4300/23/6/726

• “Ordinal Pattern Dependence in the Context of Long-Range Dependence”
  by Nüßgen, I. et al.
  Entropy 2021, 23(6), 670; https://doi.org/10.3390/e23060670
  Available online: https://www.mdpi.com/1099-4300/23/6/670

• “Robust Universal Inference”
  by Painsky, A. et al.
  Entropy 2021, 23(6), 773; https://doi.org/10.3390/e23060773
  Available online: https://www.mdpi.com/1099-4300/23/6/773

• “Information Structures for Causally Explainable Decisions”
  by Cox, L.A., Jr. et al.
  Entropy 2021, 23(5), 601; https://doi.org/10.3390/e23050601
  Available online: https://www.mdpi.com/1099-4300/23/5/601

• “Data-Driven Analysis of Nonlinear Heterogeneous Reactions through Sparse Modeling and Bayesian Statistical Approaches”
  by Ito, M. et al.
  Entropy 2021, 23(7), 824; https://doi.org/10.3390/e23070824
  Available online: https://www.mdpi.com/1099-4300/23/7/824

• “Distance-Based Estimation Methods for Models for Discrete and Mixed-Scale Data”
  by Sofikitou, E.M. et al.
  Entropy 2021, 23(1), 107; https://doi.org/10.3390/e23010107
  Available online: https://www.mdpi.com/1099-4300/23/1/107

• “Trade-offs between Error Exponents and Excess-Rate Exponents of Typical Slepian–Wolf Codes”
  by Tamir, R. et al.
  Entropy 2021, 23(3), 265; https://doi.org/10.3390/e23030265
  Available online: https://www.mdpi.com/1099-4300/23/3/265

• “On a Variational Definition for the Jensen–Shannon Symmetrization of Distances Based on the Information Radius”
  by Nielsen, F.
  Entropy 2021, 23(4), 464; https://doi.org/10.3390/e23040464
  Available online: https://www.mdpi.com/1099-4300/23/4/464

• “Signal Fluctuations and the Information Transmission Rates in Binary Communication Channels”
  by Pregowska, A.
  Entropy 2021, 23(1), 92; https://doi.org/10.3390/e23010092
  Available online: https://www.mdpi.com/1099-4300/23/1/92

• “Error Exponents and α-Mutual Information”
  by Verdú, S.
  Entropy 2021, 23(2), 199; https://doi.org/10.3390/e23020199
  Available online: https://www.mdpi.com/1099-4300/23/2/199

• “Unifying Large- and Small-Scale Theories of Coordination”
  by Kelso, J.A.S.
  Entropy 2021, 23(5), 537; https://doi.org/10.3390/e23050537
  Available online: https://www.mdpi.com/1099-4300/23/5/537  

We would like to take this opportunity to thank all the research groups that submitted these exceptional papers for their contributions to Entropy (ISSN: 1099-4300). We would greatly appreciate it if you could circulate this document among your colleagues or through your network.

It is our pleasure to invite you to read the selected papers from the “Editor’s Choice Articles” in 2021. The paper from the Section “Entropy Reviews” is as follows:

• “The Entropy Universe”
  by Ribeiro, M. et al.
  Entropy 2021, 23(2), 222; https://doi.org/10.3390/e23020222
  Available online: https://www.mdpi.com/1099-4300/23/2/222  

We would like to take this opportunity to thank all the research groups that submitted exceptional papers for their contributions to Entropy (ISSN: 1099-4300). We would greatly appreciate it if you could circulate this document among your colleagues or through your network.

If you would like to learn more about the contributions published in the “Editor’s Choice Articles”, please click on the following link: https://www.mdpi.com/journal/entropy/editors_choice.

It is our pleasure to invite you to read the selected papers from the “Editor’s Choice Articles” in 2021. The papers from the Section “Entropy and Biology” are listed below:

• “Critical Comparison of MaxCal and Other Stochastic Modeling Approaches in Analysis of Gene Networks”
  by Firman, T. et al.
  Entropy 2021, 23(3), 357; https://doi.org/10.3390/e23030357
  Available online: https://www.mdpi.com/1099-4300/23/3/357

• “Psychomotor Predictive Processing”
  by Fox, S.
  Entropy 2021, 23(7), 806; https://doi.org/10.3390/e23070806
  Available online: https://www.mdpi.com/1099-4300/23/7/806  

We would like to take this opportunity to thank all the research groups that submitted these exceptional papers for their contributions to Entropy (ISSN: 1099-4300). We would greatly appreciate it if you could circulate this document among your colleagues or through your network.

It is our pleasure to invite you to read the selected papers from the “Editor’s Choice Articles” in 2021. The papers outside the Sections are listed below:

• “Shall I Work with Them? A Knowledge Graph-Based Approach for Predicting Future Research Collaborations”
  by Kanakaris, N. et al.
  Entropy 2021, 23(6), 664; https://doi.org/10.3390/e23060664
  Available online: https://www.mdpi.com/1099-4300/23/6/664

• “α-Geodesical Skew Divergence”
  by Kimura, M. et al.
  Entropy 2021, 23(5), 528; https://doi.org/10.3390/e23050528
  Available online: https://www.mdpi.com/1099-4300/23/5/528

• “Spectral Ranking of Causal Influence in Complex Systems”
  by Zalmijn, E. et al.
  Entropy 2021, 23(3), 369; https://doi.org/10.3390/e23030369
  Available online: https://www.mdpi.com/1099-4300/23/3/369

• “Interpretable Multi-Head Self-Attention Architecture for Sarcasm Detection in Social Media”
  by Akula, R. et al.
  Entropy 2021, 23(4), 394; https://doi.org/10.3390/e23040394
  Available online: https://www.mdpi.com/1099-4300/23/4/394

• “A Geometric Perspective on Information Plane Analysis”
  by Basirat, M. et al.
  Entropy 2021, 23(6), 711; https://doi.org/10.3390/e23060711
  Available online: https://www.mdpi.com/1099-4300/23/6/711

• “On Using the BMCSL Equation of State to Renormalize the Onsager Theory Approach to Modeling Hard Prolate Spheroidal Liquid Crystal Mixtures”
  by Ohadi, D. et al.
  Entropy 2021, 23(7), 846; https://doi.org/10.3390/e23070846
  Available online: https://www.mdpi.com/1099-4300/23/7/846

We would like to take this opportunity to thank all the research groups that submitted these exceptional papers for their contributions to Entropy (ISSN: 1099-4300). We would greatly appreciate it if you could circulate this document among your colleagues or through your network.

If you would like to learn more about the contributions published in the “Editor’s Choice Articles”, please click on the following link: https://www.mdpi.com/journal/entropy/editors_choice.

It is our pleasure to invite you to read the selected papers from the “Editor’s Choice Articles” in 2021. The papers from the Section “Complexity” are listed below:

• “EEG Fractal Analysis Reflects Brain Impairment after Stroke”
  by Rubega, M. et al.
  Entropy 2021, 23(5), 592; https://doi.org/10.3390/e23050592
  Available online: https://www.mdpi.com/1099-4300/23/5/592

• “Applications of Distributed-Order Fractional Operators: A Review”
  by Ding, W. et al.
  Entropy 2021, 23(1), 110; https://doi.org/10.3390/e23010110
  Available online: https://www.mdpi.com/1099-4300/23/1/110

• “Socio-Economic Impact of the Covid-19 Pandemic in the U.S.”
  by Barlow, J. et al.
  Entropy 2021, 23(6), 673; https://doi.org/10.3390/e23060673
  Available online: https://www.mdpi.com/1099-4300/23/6/673

• “Why Do Big Data and Machine Learning Entail the Fractional Dynamics?”
  by Niu, H. et al.
  Entropy 2021, 23(3), 297; https://doi.org/10.3390/e23030297
  Available online: https://www.mdpi.com/1099-4300/23/3/297

• “Global Sensitivity Analysis Based on Entropy: From Differential Entropy to Alternative Measures”
  by Kala, Z.
  Entropy 2021, 23(6), 778; https://doi.org/10.3390/e23060778
  Available online: https://www.mdpi.com/1099-4300/23/6/778

• “Menzerath’s Law in the Syntax of Languages Compared with Random Sentences”
  by Tanaka-Ishii, K.
  Entropy 2021, 23(6), 661; https://doi.org/10.3390/e23060661
  Available online: https://www.mdpi.com/1099-4300/23/6/661

• “Low-Frequency Seismic Noise Properties in the Japanese Islands”
  by Lyubushin, A.
  Entropy 2021, 23(4), 474; https://doi.org/10.3390/e23040474
  Available online: https://www.mdpi.com/1099-4300/23/4/474 

We would like to take this opportunity to thank all the research groups that submitted these exceptional papers for their contributions to Entropy (ISSN: 1099-4300). We would greatly appreciate it if you could circulate this document among your colleagues or through your network.

If you would like to learn more about the contributions published in the “Editor’s Choice Articles”, please click on the following link: https://www.mdpi.com/journal/entropy/editors_choice.

The 2021 citation metrics have been released in the Journal Citation Reports (JCR), and we’re pleased to announce the following results for MDPI journals:

For more information on Impact Factors and what it means to index academic journals, please visit our related blog posts.

* Journals given their first Impact Factor in 2022

Source: 2021 Journal Impact Factors, Journal Citation Reports ^TM (Clarivate, 2022)

The 2021 citation metrics have been officially released in Scopus!

We are pleased to announce that 182 MDPI journals are included, of which:

● 21 journals received their first CiteScore.
● 85% of journals increased their CiteScore from 2020.
● 155 journals (85%) ranked above average, in at least one category.

The following 65 MDPI journals (36%) ranked among the top 25% of journals, in at least one category:

Source: 2021 CiteScores™ (Elsevier)

We are pleased to announce that Entropy (ISSN: 1099-4300) has received an increased CiteScore of 4.4 in the latest released 2021 CiteScore™ values, published by Elsevier in June 2022. Entropy now ranks 10/77 (Q1) in “Mathematical Physics”, 17/63 (Q2) in “Physics and Astronomy”, 235/708 (Q2) in “Electrical and Electronic Engineering”, and 117/353 (Q2) in “Information Systems”. For full details of the current CiteScore release, please see the journal's Source profile: https://www.scopus.com/sourceid/13715.

We would like to extend our sincerest gratitude to all the authors, reviewers, and editors who have contributed to the journal and enabled this next big step.

We are pleased to announce that Entropy (ISSN: 1099-4300) is now inviting nominations for the Entropy 2022 Young Investigator Award. This prize will be given to one young investigator in recognition of their excellence in the field of entropy and information theory. All nominations will be assessed by an Award Evaluation Committee led by the Editor-in-Chief, Prof. Dr. Kevin H. Knuth.

The prize:

• CHF 2000;
• Option to publish one paper free of charge in Entropy after peer review before the end of December 2023;
• A certificate.

Eligibility and requirements:

• Must have a PhD degree;
• Must be below 40 years of age by 31 December 2022;
• Must have produced ground-breaking research and made a significant contribution to the advancement of entropy and information theory;
• Must be nominated by senior scientists.

List of documents for nomination:

• Detailed curriculum vitae, including an updated publication list and a list of the researcher’s own research grants;
• Birth certificate or other proof of age;
• Scanned copy of doctorate certificate;
• Signed nomination letters from two established senior scientists.

Schedule:
Nomination deadline: 28 September 2022
Winner announcement: 23 November 2022

How to submit nominations?
The nominations must be submitted online
(https://www.mdpi.com/journal/entropy/awards/submit/1703).

Entropy Editorial Office

We are pleased to announce the launch of a project entitled "Editor's Choice Articles" in Entropy (ISSN: 1099-4300). The list of high-quality and interesting papers that were specifically recommended by our Editorial Board Members can be found at the following link: https://www.mdpi.com/journal/entropy/editors_choice. We have selected 16 of these papers to display here. The paper list is as follows:

• “High-Entropy Alloys for Advanced Nuclear Applications”
  Ed J. Pickering, Alexander W. Carruthers, Paul J. Barron, Simon C. Middleburgh, David E. J. Armstrong and Amy S. Gandy
  Available online: https://www.mdpi.com/1099-4300/23/1/98

• “Applications of Distributed-Order Fractional Operators: A Review”
  Wei Ding, Sansit Patnaik, Sai Sidhardh and Fabio Semperlotti
  Available online: https://www.mdpi.com/1099-4300/23/1/110

• “The Entropy Universe”
  Maria Ribeiro, Teresa Henriques, Luísa Castro, André Souto, Luís Antunes, Cristina Costa-Santos and Andreia Teixeira
  Available online: https://www.mdpi.com/1099-4300/23/2/222

• “Deep Task-Based Quantization”
  Nir Shlezinger and Yonina C. Eldar
  Available online: https://www.mdpi.com/1099-4300/23/1/104

• “Global Sensitivity Analysis Based on Entropy: From Differential Entropy to Alternative Measures”
  Zdeněk Kala
  Available online: https://www.mdpi.com/1099-4300/23/6/778

• “Information Theory for Agents in Artificial Intelligence, Psychology, and Economics”
  Michael S. Harré
  Available online: https://www.mdpi.com/1099-4300/23/3/310

• “Mechanism Integrated Information”
  Leonardo S. Barbosa, William Marshall, Larissa Albantakis and Giulio Tononi
  Available online: https://www.mdpi.com/1099-4300/23/3/362

• “Information Geometric Theory in the Prediction of Abrupt Changes in System Dynamics”
  Adrian-Josue Guel-Cortez and Eun-jin Kim
  Available online: https://www.mdpi.com/1099-4300/23/6/694

• “The Principle of Covariance and the Hamiltonian Formulation of General Relativity”
  Massimo Tessarotto and Claudio Cremaschini
  Available online: https://www.mdpi.com/1099-4300/23/2/215

• “Information Structures for Causally Explainable Decisions”
  Louis Anthony Cox, Jr.
  Available online: https://www.mdpi.com/1099-4300/23/5/601

• “Ordinal Pattern Dependence in the Context of Long-Range Dependence”
  Ines Nüßgen and Alexander Schnurr
  Available online: https://www.mdpi.com/1099-4300/23/6/670

• “Information and Self-Organization II: Steady State and Phase Transition”
  Hermann Haken and Juval Portugali
  Available online: https://www.mdpi.com/1099-4300/23/6/707

• “Causality and Information Transfer Between the Solar Wind and the Magnetosphere–Ionosphere System”
  Pouya Manshour, Georgios Balasis, Giuseppe Consolini, Constantinos Papadimitriou and Milan Paluš
  Available online: https://www.mdpi.com/1099-4300/23/4/390

• “Why Do Big Data and Machine Learning Entail the Fractional Dynamics?”
  Haoyu Niu, YangQuan Chen and Bruce J. West
  Available online: https://www.mdpi.com/1099-4300/23/3/297

• “Beyond Causal Explanation: Einstein’s Principle Not Reichenbach’s”
  Michael Silberstein, William Mark Stuckey and Timothy McDevitt
  Available online: https://www.mdpi.com/1099-4300/23/1/114

• “Coupling between Blood Pressure and Subarachnoid Space Width Oscillations during Slow Breathing”
  Agnieszka Gruszecka, Magdalena K. Nuckowska, Monika Waskow, Jacek Kot, Pawel J. Winklewski, Wojciech Guminski, Andrzej F. Frydrychowski, Jerzy Wtorek, Adam Bujnowski, Piotr Lass, Tomislav Stankovski and Marcin Gruszecki
  Available online: https://www.mdpi.com/1099-4300/23/1/113

We would like to take this opportunity to thank all the research groups that submitted these exceptional papers for their contributions to Entropy. We would appreciate it if you would circulate this document among your colleagues or through your network.

We are pleased to announce the two winners of the Best ECR Presentation Awards sponsored by Entropy (ISSN: 1099-4300) for the CNS*2021 Online Workshop on Methods of Information Theory in Computational Neuroscience held on 6 and 7 July 2021. Congratulations to the winners, Dr. Fleur Zeldenrust and Mr. Lucas Rudelt.

“Estimating Information Transfer In Vitro: Results from Barrel Cortex” by Fleur Zeldenrust

Understanding the relation between (sensory) stimuli and the activity of neurons (i.e., ‘the neural code’) lies at the heart of understanding the computational properties of the brain. However, quantifying the information between a stimulus and a spike train has proven to be challenging due to the limited life span of a cell in an in vitro setup. In 2017, in this workshop, I presented a new in vitro method to measure how much information a single neuron transfers from the input it receives to its output spike train. This method has the advantage that it is fast (~10 minutes) compared with traditional methods. This decrease in recording time is obtained by generating an input by an artificial neural network that responds to a randomly appearing and disappearing ‘sensory stimulus’: the hidden state. The low entropy of this hidden state allows for a fast estimate of transferred information. Using this method, we have now recorded over 850 trials in almost 300 inhibitory and excitatory neurons of the barrel cortex, using different pharmacological modulations (including dopamine, acetylcholine, and serotonin receptor agonists). Here, I presented the first conclusions of this large database of recordings and showed how this method can be extended to dynamic clamp and the effects this has on modeled neurons.

"Embedding Optimization Reveals Long-Lasting History Dependence in Neural Spiking Activity" by Lucas Rudelt

Information processing can leave distinct footprints on the statistics of neural spiking. For example, efficient coding minimizes statistical dependencies on spiking history, while temporal integration of information may require the maintenance of information over various timescales. To investigate these footprints, I presented an approach that quantifies history dependence within the spiking of a single neuron, using mutual information between the entire past and current spiking. Applying this approach to extracellular spike recordings, we found that both the strength and the timescale of history dependence showed striking differences between different neural systems. In conjunction with recent highly parallel spike recording techniques, this approach could yield valuable insights into how information processing is organized in the brain.

We are pleased to announce the winners of the 2022 Best Paper Award, which was sponsored by MDPI and Entropy (ISSN: 1099-4300). Each winner (corresponding author) will receive CHF 500 and the opportunity to publish a paper free of charge in Entropy in 2022.

The winners, comprising one review article and four research articles, are:

Review article:

• “Thermodynamics in Ecology—An Introductory Review”
  by Søren Nors Nielsen, Felix Müller, Joao Carlos Marques, Simone Bastianoni and Sven Erik Jørgensen
  Entropy 2020, 22(8), 820; https://doi.org/10.3390/e22080820

Research articles:

• “The Role of Entropy in the Development of Economics”
  by Aleksander Jakimowicz
  Entropy 2020, 22(4), 452; https://doi.org/10.3390/e22040452

• “Large Deviations for Continuous Time Random Walks”
  by Wanli Wang, Eli Barkai and Stanislav Burov
  Entropy 2020, 22(6), 697; https://doi.org/10.3390/e22060697

• “Thermodynamics at Very Long Time and Space Scales”
  by Bjarne Andresen and Christopher Essex
  Entropy 2020, 22(10), 1090; https://doi.org/10.3390/e22101090

• “Geometric Optimisation of Quantum Thermodynamic Processes”
  by Paolo Abiuso, Harry J. D. Miller, Martí Perarnau-Llobet and Matteo Scandi
  Entropy 2020, 22(10), 1076; https://doi.org/10.3390/e22101076

We congratulate the winners on their accomplishments, and we would also like to take this opportunity to thank the research groups of the above papers for their contributions to Entropy, as well as the Award Committee for their efforts in the evaluation process.

We are pleased to announce the launch of a new initiative, the Special Issue Mentor Program.

This program intends to provide an opportunity for early-career scientists to enhance their editing, networking, and organizational skills and to work closely with our journal to gain more editorial experience.

Early-career scientists are being asked to propose ideas for new Entropy Special Issues. Early-career scientists would act as Guest Editors under the mentorship of an experienced scientist. This mentor could be a member of the Editorial Board of Entropy, or from other well-established research institutes or laboratories.

Early career scientists would have the following responsibilities:

• Providing a CV, including a list of publications;
• Proposing a Special Issue title and a short introduction;
• Writing a brief promotion plan for the Special Issue;
• Writing an editorial for the online Special Issue;
• Reviewing and making decisions for submissions under the mentorship of our Editorial Board Members.

Mentor’s Responsibilities:

• Conducting a final check before the Special Issue is published online;
• Co-editing the Special Issue with younger scholars and performing quality control of the publications in the SI;
• Providing suggestions to younger scholars if they have doubts or concerns regarding submissions;
• Organizing video calls with young scholars and the office regularly to discuss problems and improvement suggestions for the Special Issue.

Certificates and Awards:

When the Special Issue is closed, the Editorial Office will provide official certificates for all the mentors. Younger scholars will be prioritized as candidates for Entropy Young Investigator Awards in future editions.

If you are interested in this opportunity, please send your Special Issue proposal to the Entropy Editorial Office (entropy@mdpi.com), and we will discuss the process (i.e., mentor collaboration, Special Issue topic feasibility analysis, etc.) in further detail.

In addition to the new Special Issue Mentor Program, Entropy continues to welcome all Special Issue proposals based on hot research topics as usual.

Entropy Editorial Office

We are pleased to announce the winners of the 2021 Outstanding Reviewer Awards, sponsored by MDPI and Entropy (ISSN: 1099-4300). The awards have been granted to five outstanding scholars in recognition of their excellent contributions to their reviewer process. These scholars have been awarded a prize of CHF 500 as well as a 50% discount towards the publication fee of one paper in 2022.

The award winners are:

Name: Jim W. Kay
Affiliation: School of Mathematics and Statistics, University of Glasgow, Glasgow G12 8QQ, UK

Name: Christophe Chesneau
Affiliation: Department of Mathematics, University of Caen, 14000 Caen, France

Name: Esteban Tlelo-Cuautle
Affiliation: Instituto Nacional de Astrofísica, Óptica y Electrónica (INAOE), Puebla 72840, México

Name: Dr. Dennis Dieks
Affiliation: Freudenthal Instituut History and Philosophy of Science, Utrecht University, 3584 CC Utrecht, Netherlands

Name: Claudio Cremaschini
Affiliation: Research Center for Theoretical Physics and Astrophysics, Institute of Physics, Silesian University in Opava, Bezrucovo nám.13, CZ-74601 Opava, Czech Republic

The selection process was incredibly difficult due to the high number of exceptional candidates. We appreciate every reviewer’s work in facilitating the review process and controlling the quality of manuscripts.

For more information about the Entropy awards, please see the following link: https://www.mdpi.com/journal/entropy/awards.

It is our great honor to congratulate the Editorial Board Members and Editors in MDPI's journals who have been distinguished as 2021 Highly Cited Researchers by Clarivate, according to Web of Science data. We herewith express our gratitude for the immense impact the named researchers continue to make on scientific progress and on our journals' development.

Clarivate's annual list of Highly Cited Researchers^TM identifies the most highly cited scientists for the past decade. Their impactful papers are among the top 1 per cent in the citation distribution of one or more of 22 fields analyzed in the "Essential Science Indicators", distinguishing them as hugely influential among their peers.

The full list of 2021 Highly Cited Researchers  can be accessed at the following webpage in the Web of Science^TM https://recognition.webofscience.com/awards/highly-cited/2021/.

--- Highly Cited Researchers (HCR) is a Clarivate product.

We are pleased to announce that the Best Paper Award, sponsored by Entropy (ISSN 1099-4300; website: https://www.mdpi.com/journal/entropy), for the 1st International Conference on Novelties in Intelligent Digital Systems (NIDS2021) was granted to the work by Anton Anikin, Oleg Sychev, and Mikhail Denisov (Volgograd State Technical University, Volgograd, Russia). Congratulations!

Title: “Ontology Reasoning for Explanatory Feedback Generation to Teach how Algorithms Work”

Summary: Intelligent tutoring systems are becoming increasingly common in assisting students but are often aimed at isolated subject domain tasks without creating a scaffolding system from lower- to higher-level cognitive skills, with low-level skills often neglected. We designed and developed an intelligent tutoring system, CompPrehension, aimed at the comprehension level of Bloom's taxonomy. The system features plug-in-based architecture, adding new subject domains and learning strategies. It uses formal models and software reasoners to solve the problems, judge the answers, and generate explanatory feedback for the broken domain rules and follow-up questions to stimulate the students' thinking. We developed two subject domain models: an Expressions domain for teaching the expression order of evaluation and a Control Flow Statements domain for code-tracing tasks. Developing algorithms using control structures and understanding their building blocks are essential skills in mastering programming, while ontologies and software reasoning offers a promising method for developing intelligent tutoring systems in well-defined domains (such as programming languages and algorithms). It can also be used for many kinds of teaching tasks. In this work, we used a formal model consisting of production rules for Apache Jena reasoner as a basis for developing a constraint-based tutor for introductory programming domain. The tutor can determine fault reasons for any incorrect answer that a student can enter. The problem the student should solve is building an execution trace for the given algorithm. The problem is a closed-ended question that requires arranging given actions in the (unique) correct order; some actions can be used several times, while others can be omitted. Using formal reasoning to check domain constraints allowed us to provide explanatory feedback for all kinds of errors subject-domain tasks that students can make.

We are pleased to announce that the Best Presentation Award of the XLVII Congress of Polish Physicists 2021, sponsored by Entropy (ISSN: 1099-4300), has been granted to Dr. David Ziemkiewicz from Bydgoszcz University of Science and Technology. Congratulations!

Title: “Chaotic Dynamics of the Clock Mechanism”

For centuries, the mechanical pendulum clock has been one of the primary means of measuring time. Its central part is a damped pendulum, kept in motion by the exciting force, the nature of which depends on the type of clock mechanism. The mechanism supplies energy to the pendulum and is simultaneously regulated by it; it is a special case of a self-excited oscillator, and the current feedback makes the dynamics of the system non-linear and often chaotic, with a fractal attractor. In the history of clock development, most attempts to improve the precision of timing have been based on reducing the influence of non-linear effects by minimizing the interaction between the pendulum and the mechanism—so that it is a good approximation of a mathematical free pendulum. A completely different approach was proposed in 1722 by John Harrison. In its construction, the pendulum is in constant contact with the mechanism and vibrates with a very large amplitude. Thanks to modern numerical methods, it is possible to perform a detailed analysis of this type of system (D. Ziemkiewicz, Phys. Rev. E 2021, 103, 062208). It can be shown that under appropriate conditions (correctly identified by Harrison), one can obtain an error of indications at the level of a few seconds per year, which is an unattainable value for other types of mechanical clocks.

Academic editors play a crucial role in leading our journals and ensuring that each article undergoes a robust and timely peer-review. With the launch of Topics this year and addition of Topic Editors to our family of academic editors, we decided it would be a good time to restructure our academic boards, thus providing more clarity and support for each role. MDPI is pleased to announce the launch of a new position—Topical Advisory Panel Member, that will replace the previous position of Topics Board Member. The Topical Advisory Panel will be comprised of early career researchers eager to gain experience in editorial work.

The main responsibility of the new members of the Topical Advisory Panel is to regularly provide support to Guest Editors, Topic Editors, and Section Board Members. The responsibilities of the Topical Advisory Panel are available here: https://www.mdpi.com/editors.

Each year, the members’ performances are evaluated, and outstanding members are promoted to the Editorial Board by the Editor-in-Chief.

To qualify as a Topical Advisory Panel Member, applicants must:

• Have expertise and experience in the field related to the journal;
• Have received a Ph.D. in the last 10 years, approximately;
• Have at least 6-8 published papers in the last 5 years as first author or corresponding author;
• Currently hold an independent research position in academia or a government institute.

If you are interested in this role, please contact the editorial office by email.

We look forward to hearing from you soon.

We are pleased to announce that the Young Scientist Award, sponsored by Entropy for CCS2021-Satellite on Econophysics 2021, was granted to Dr. Jeremy D. Turiel, from University College London. Congratulations!

“Self-Organised Criticality in High-Frequency Finance: The Case of Flash Crashes”

With the rise of computing and artificial intelligence, advanced modeling and forecasting has been applied to High-Frequency markets. A crucial element of solid production modeling though relies on the investigation of data distributions and how they relate to modeling assumptions. In this work, we investigate volume distributions during anomalous price events and show how their tail exponents <2 indicate a diverging second moment of the distribution, i.e., variance. We then tie the dynamics of flash crashes to self-organised criticality. The findings are of great relevance for regulators and market makers as they advocate for rigorous heavy-tailed modeling of risks and changes in regulation to avoid simultaneous liquidity withdrawals and hard risk constraints which lead to synchronisation and critical events.

Founded in 1996, MDPI was one of the first fully Open Access publisher. Over 25 years MDPI has grown to become the largest Open Access publisher globally, publishing over 160,000 articles across more than 350 journals in 2020. At the core, MDPI was founded in response to a pressing need of fast publication and inclusion. The scholar was set at the centre of the publication process for the first time. Acting as a service provider, rather than a product provider, MDPI exists to help scientists achive their objective to disseminate research results. At MDPI, we believe scientists deserve a better service from the publishing world.

The International Open Access Week (Open Access Week), founded by the SPARC (the Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition) Alliance and student partners in 2008, has been successfully running for 13 years. As an advocate and pioneer of open access publishing, MDPI actively responds to the call of International Open Access Week. This year’s theme of “It Matters How We Open Knowledge: Building Structural Equity” highlights the Recommendation’s call for equitable participation from all authors and readers.

For the last 25 years, MDPI has been committed to disseminating open research. Here is a video showing MDPI’s Commitment to Equity, Inclusion and Diversity for More than 25 Years.

International Open Access Week is an important opportunity to catalyze new conversations, create connections across and between communities that can facilitate this co-design, and advance progress in the building of more equitable foundations for opening knowledge—discussions and actions that need to be continued, year in and year out. MDPI has always aimed to provide professional and efficient publishing services to scholars around the world.

Our mission is to make scientific research accessible to everyone; this year, we interview and hold discussions with open science ambassadors on how to build an equal and inclusive environment for open science. Academic editors help us collaborate with more institutions to advocate for open access ideas.

Read our anniversary blog post: "Sharing 'Collective Human Knowledge': The Benefits of Open Access Publication"

Besides this, our scientific community is a key driver of our success and MDPI’s remarkable growth. Despite the pandemic, we have prepared online conferences and workshops to gather scholars from different communities.

The Basel Sustainable Publishing online forum provides an equal opportunity for stakeholders and researchers from multi-cultural environments to exchange ideas and eliminate barriers to participation.

Conference date: 25 October 2021, online
Conference website: https://bspf2021.sciforum.net/
Main topics: MDPI discusses the current dilemma of open access science from various perspectives such as governments, libraries, and publishers, and related measures on how to change the status quo of discrimination from a global perspective.

We aim to support equality, inclusion, diversity, and accessibility in scholarly communications. We collaborate with universities and key laboratories and have scholarly communications with researchers, teachers, and students on open access workshops.

• 25 October 2021
  Energies journal and Institute of Mechanics, Chinese Academy of Sciences

• 28 October 2021
  Machines journal and State Key Laboratory of Traction Power, Southwest Jiaotong University

• 29 October 2021
  Processes journal and Beijing Institute of Technology

• 29 October 2021
  Coatings journal and Wuhan University of Technology

MDPI is committed to providing open access and high-quality publishing services for scholars and promoting rapid dissemination of academic achievements. We hope to promote the practices and policies of open access publishing and diversify the dissemination of academic achievements.

The Nobel Prize in Physics 2021 was awarded to Syukuro Manabe, Klaus Hasselmann and Giorgio Parisi. One half of the prize was awarded jointly to Professor Manabe and Professor Hasselmann for the physical modelling of Earth’s climate, quantifying variability and reliably predicting global warming, according to the Nobel Prize committee, while the other half of the prize went to Professor Parisi for the discovery of the interplay of disorder and fluctuations in physical systems from atomic to planetary scales. The three physicists contributed to the understanding of chaotic and apparently random phenomena.

 Manabe, Hasselmann, Parisi (from left to right) © Nobel Media

"The discoveries being recognised this year demonstrate that our knowledge about the climate rests on a solid scientific foundation, based on a rigorous analysis of observations. This year’s Laureates have all contributed to us gaining deeper insight into the properties and evolution of complex physical systems", said Thors Hans Hansson, chair of the Nobel Committee for Physics.

Manabe and Hasselman laid the foundations for the climate models used by scientists today. They were among the first to distinguish between climate phenomena on the one hand and random occurrences of the weather on the other hand, and to assess the impact of human activities on the climate from the beginning of the 20th century.

Parisi's novel studies involved identifying hidden patterns in disordered complex materials called spin glasses, a special type of metal alloy in which iron atoms, for example, are randomly mixed into a grid of copper atoms. He constructed a mathematical description of the apparently random behavior of spins. His findings not only impacted physics, but also mathematics, biology, neuroscience and machine learning, because these felds include problems which are related to so-called geometrical frustration.

We send our congratulations to the Nobel Laureates, especially to Giorgio Parisi, who was a one-time author in Entropy (with Juan J. Ruiz-Lorenzo et al.): “Spin Glasses in a Field Show a Phase Transition Varying the Distance among Real Replicas (and How to Exploit It to Find the Critical Line in a Field)”.

Rigorous peer-review is the cornerstone of high-quality academic publishing. Over 369,916 scholars served as reviewers for MDPI journals in 2020. We are extremely appreciative of all those who made a contribution to the editorial process in this capacity. At the beginning of every year, journal editorial offices publish a list of all reviewers’ names to express our gratitude. In addition, this year, the MDPI Top Reviewer Award was announced, to recognize the very best reviewers for their expertise and dedication, and their high-quality, and timely review reports. We are pleased to announce the following winners of the 2020 MDPI Top Reviewer Award:

• Adriana Burlea-Schiopoiu;
• Alban Kuriqi;
• Álvaro González-Vila;
• Alessandro Alaimo;
• Alexey Beskopylny;
• Alexander Yu Churyumov;
• Alberto Fernández-Isabel;
• Andrea Mastinu;
• Antonios N. Papadopoulos;
• Anton Rassõlkin;
• Antonio Humberto Hamad Minervino;
• Arkadiusz Matwijczuk;
• Artur Słomka;
• Baojie He;
• Bartłomiej Potaniec;
• Bojan Đurin;
• Camilo Arturo Rodriguez Diaz;
• Carmelo Maria Musarella;
• Chiachung Chen;
• Chiman Kwan;
• Cristian Busu;
• Danil Pimenov;
• Dan-Cristian Dabija;
• Delfín Ortega-Sánchez;
• Demetrio Antonio Zema;
• Denis Butusov;
• Elena Lucchi;
• Gaurab Dutta;
• Livia Anastasiu;
• M. R. Safaei.

For more information about how to become a reviewer of MDPI journals, please see: www.mdpi.com/reviewers.

UN's 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) are the blueprint to achieve a better and more sustainable future for all. In 2020 the SDG Publishers Compact was launched, aimed to inspire publishers and accelerate progress to achieve the 17 goals by 2030. Members of the programme are committed to support the publication of materials that will promote and inspire actions towards SDGs.

MDPI is an eager advocate of SDGs and has already been supporting the programme by creating Special Issues and publishing a series of books on SDGs prior to joining the Compact in 2021. MDPI's Sustainability Foundation initiated the World Sustainability Awards in 2016. We fully support UN's goals to promote sustainable actions that make the world a better place for all and, as part of its commitment, we will focus our actions on SDG10: Reduced Inequalities whilst promoting all 17 SDGs. For more details, please visit the programme’s website: https://www.un.org/sustainabledevelopment/sdg-publishers-compact/.

Joining this initiative was a unanimous decision. MDPI has in its core values the dissemination of science for all, breaking the wall between research access and under-represented members of the scientific community and the general population. To support this initiative further and continue to support under-represented scientists, MDPI will take a series of actions that will be announced once ready.

The first action MDPI takes is to nominate Dr. Liliane Auwerter as the coordinator of the programme. Dr. Auwerter studied Environmental Process Technology (UTFPR, Brazil), obtained her MSc degree in Water and Environmental Engineering (University of Surrey, UK) and in 2020 completed her PhD in self-healing low-friction materials for water transport (Imperial College London, UK), always focusing on diverse scientific projects that would potentially bring sustainability to industrial processes. As a student in Brazil, she engaged in volunteering activities focused on environmental education and took part in the Millennial Development Goals meetings held at the university.

For more information, please contact:
Dr. Liliane Auwerter
Scientific Officer
liliane.auwerter@mdpi.com

We are pleased to announce that the following 17 recognized scholars have recently joined the Editorial Board of Entropy (ISSN: 1099-4300):

Further details about the Editorial Board can be found at: https://www.mdpi.com/journal/entropy/editors.

Entropy has launched a new project—Video Exhibition—for authors that have papers published in Entropy. Authors can apply to exhibit a video abstract to briefly introduce their published research. That will help the paper make a bigger impact, potentially attract more citations, and further establish authors’ reputation.

Website Link: https://www.mdpi.com/journal/entropy/exhibition.

To submit the video abstract, please click “Submit Your Video” on the website. Below is an introduction of the Video Abstract (VA):

A video abstract is an increasingly popular way of getting others to engage with published research, increasing the visibility of articles. It can be 2–5 minutes long, summing up what has been accomplished and documented in your paper and, crucially, why it is important for the community. One can use video abstracts to illustrate concepts explained in the article, to introduce viewers to the equipment and tools that have been used in the research, and engage with the audience in a more informal manner. It could be a video recorded by using the "record slide" function in PowerPoint, and then saved as one of the following file types: MPEG-4 Video (*.mp4), WMV，AVI，MOV，3GP，or MPEG, depending on which is the most convenient for you.

Below are some basic technical guidelines and requirements for the video abstract:

1. Maximum size: 200 MB;
2. Title (it will be displayed to the public);
3. Cover image (jgeg, png): minimum size: 250px*166px;
4. Copyright holder: Please state who owns the copyright of your items.

If you are interested in the exhibition, please do not hesitate to share your video abstract with us. Alternatively, you could send the video abstract to entropy-marketing@mdpi.com and we will put it online.

This serves to announce to our valued authors based in Japan that value-added tax, or consumption tax will now be imposed on article processing fees and other service fees for all papers submitted, or resubmitted (assigned new paper IDs), effective from 15 August 2021. The change is in accordance with the Japanese "Act for Partial Revision of the Income Tax Act and Other Acts" (Act No. 9 of 2015), which includes a revision of consumption taxation on cross-border supplies of services such as digital content distribution.

For additional information from the National Tax Agency please see here ("Cross-border supplies of electronic services").

Contact: Setsuko Nishihara, MDPI Tokyo

We are pleased to announce the winner of the “Best Poster Award” sponsored by Entropy for the 11th Polish Symposium on Physics in Economy and Social Sciences (FENS2021) held on 1–3 July 2021.

• “Multibranch Multifractality and the Phase Transitions in the Trading Activity”
  by Jaroslaw Klamut, Ryszard Kutner, Tomasz Gubiec and Zbigniew R. Struzik

Empirical time series of inter-event or waiting times were investigated using a modified multifractal detrended fluctuation analysis operating on fluctuations of mean detrended dynamics. At the core of the extended multifractal analysis was the non-monotonic behavior of the generalized Hurst exponent h(q)—the fundamental exponent in the study of multifractals. The consequence of this behavior is the non-monotonic behavior of the coarse Hölder exponent α(q) leading to the multi-branchedness of the spectrum of dimensions. The Legendre–Fenchel transform was used instead of the routinely used canonical Legendre (single-branched) contact transform. The thermodynamic consequences of the multi-branched multifractality were revealed. The results were presented for the high-frequency data of the Polish stock market (Warsaw Stock Exchange) for intertrade times for KGHM—one of the most liquid stocks contained therein.

We are pleased to report that the 2020 Impact Factor of Entropy increased to 2.524 in the recent release of the Journal Citation Reports®, representing the 6th consecutive year of continuous growth. Entropy now ranks 37/85 (Q2) in the “Physics, Multidisciplinary” category.

Source: Data according to Journal Citation Reports®, 2020 release, a Clarivate Analytics product.

The 2020 citation metrics have been officially released in the Journal Citation Reports (JCR)!

We are pleased to announce that 85 MDPI journals are included, of which:

• 10 journals received their first impact factor
• 96% of journals increased their impact factor from 2019
• 32 journals (38%) ranked among the top 25% of journals, in at least one category